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The labs handling coronavirus testing for pro sports leagues

29 July 2020
Dan Ackermann

The NFL, NBA and MLS have all enlisted the same company, BioReference Laboratories, to handle coronavirus testing during their respective restarts.

The big picture: Coronavirus testing in sports has become a hot-button issue, with some concerned that leagues are consuming limited resources while many Americans either can't get tested or have to wait too long for results.

  • BioReference chairman Jon Cohen pushed back against that narrative, saying the company's work with sports leagues hasn't impacted its ability to test the general public in Florida and other states where it has facilities.
  • "Our current capacity is somewhere in the vicinity of 50,000 to 70,000 tests a day," he told The Athletic's Joe Vardon (subscription). "So the amount of testing we're doing for the sports franchises is minimal compared to our total testing."

NFL: testing will reportedly cost around $75 million, and will be evenly paid for by all 32 teams. The fee includes 120 tests per team per day, with the option to add additional tests for $125 each.

  • NBA: Players receive both a nasal and saliva swab every other day, administered by the ~100 BioReference employees living in the bubble. The samples are driven 75 minutes away to a lab in Melbourne, Florida, for analysis.
  • MLS: Like its Disney World counterpart, players are tested every other day. There hasn't been a positive test among the 24 participating clubs since July 10. Tests take 12–15 hours to process.
Data: Yahoo Finance; Chart: Axios Visuals

The impact: Shares in BioReference's parent company, OPKO Health, are up nearly 300% since the start of the year, and the stock has surged since testing began in the NBA and MLS bubbles.

Other testing partners:

Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times

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Newly released transcripts of bodycam footage from the Minneapolis Police Department show that George Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times in the moments leading up to his death.

Why it matters: Floyd's killing sparked a national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and an ongoing reckoning over systemic racism in the United States. The transcripts "offer one the most thorough and dramatic accounts" before Floyd's death, The New York Times writes.

The state of play: The transcripts were released as former officer Thomas Lane seeks to have the charges that he aided in Floyd's death thrown out in court, per the Times. He is one of four officers who have been charged.

  • The filings also include a 60-page transcript of an interview with Lane. He said he "felt maybe that something was going on" when asked if he believed that Floyd was having a medical emergency at the time.

What the transcripts say:

  • Floyd told the officers he was claustrophobic as they tried to get him into the squad car.
  • The transcripts also show Floyd saying, "Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead."
  • Former officer Derek Chauvin, who had his knee on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes, told Floyd, "Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk."

Read the transcripts via DocumentCloud.